No capped brood ?

[Mmazzonc]

We are now well into April and one of my hives shows very little worker bee activity. When I opened the hive I found no capped brood and no new larva. Pollen reserves present but no capped brood. Freshly laid eggs ? The queen is present and seems to be moving around with no signs of distress. No drone cells present.
Any suggestions ?

 

[badguy_goodguy]

Can you put a picture of them?
Are the frames full covered by honey bees?

Try to give them around 500 ml 1:1 sugar syrop and see the results.
You may wish to add 5ml vodka in it

 

[Luminos]

Welcome to the forum, both - I'm not experienced enough to give you any advice other than I would keep the vodka for myself
Someone more experienced on the forum will come along soon

 

[badguy_goodguy]

In Romania, we add 5ml of vodka in the syrop and that's making the queen laying much more eggs, dunno why.
I think it's because of fighting nosemose?

 

[Finman]

.
If the queen has swollen abdomen, nosema has ruined it, - perhaps.
If it has a thin abdomen, it may be a virgin queen.

 

[drstitson]

finman's suggestions sound sensible.

any sign of old open supercedure (substitution) cells on the face of any of the combs?

do you mark your queens?

 

[Midland Beek]

The advice would be to squash the queen and unite the remaining bees to another colony, or to re-queen. But the colony has had it.

And the bees in the hive might in large part be robber bees from nearby colonies.

 

[Finman]

And the bees in the hive might in large part be robber bees from nearby colonies.

of course not. If they were bobbers they would clean food away in couple of days and colony would die. They have a queen and there is no reason why robbers succeed to come in.

 

[Baggyone]

Whats the weather like? If its good then colony should be better but if its been rubbish could be just taking time. I have 4 out of 5 hives that have simply stopped. The weather has been poor for me between my last two inspections.

Patience methinks. give them a couple of weeks.

baggy

 

[drstitson]

at this point in season it'd be better that any bees left were put to better use.

either remove queen and unite directly using newspaper or just shake out the colony in front of your other hives and let the bees find a new home.

your other colonies will soon be ready to provide a replacement nucleus or you could put the empty hive and comb to good use as a bait hive for one of the inevitable swarms that should be starting their shortly.

 

[Swarm]

Anyone else noticed the weather has deteriorated and that conditions are not those of last year (at least, not yet).
Some of us have only opened up once. This is April as it was and it's still E A R L Y.

 

[Mmazzonc]

Sorry forgot to mention that I'm in Italy (Tuscany) and our bees have been active since halfway through March.

 

[Mmazzonc]

The weather here in Tuscany is good and has warmed up to 18-20 deg C. Plenty of honey in the hive and tried to feed with 1:1 syrup which they refused? Added a frame of capped brood and fresh brood from another hive which seems to have sparked off more activity around the hive. the queen is marked and is 2 years old. May need to requeen if I don't find fresh brood this weekend